Deontic contexts and the interpretation of disjunction in legal discourse

Abstract

This study investigates the interpretation of or in legal texts, focusing on two puzzles: ``inclusive/exclusive'' or and ``free choice permission''. The study first examines various examples of or in American court cases described by Solan and the ``and/or'' rule that he describes. It then turns to occurrences of or in a different legal domain, that of the World Trade Organization, giving a brief introduction to the WTO dispute mechanism and its principles of interpretation before examining these occurrences of or. The study then introduces the inquisitive semantics framework as a way to account for these occurrences, offering an analysis of the inclusive/exclusive or and free choice or puzzles and of the interaction of or with obligation, permission, and negation more generally.